The Columbus journal., 1887-10-19

them q good deal better on paper than
anywhere else. But there's an awful fas-
cination about them, somehow. It's like
the sea. A man that's got his living out
, of them for ten years is fit for nothing else
in Gods world. He can't get away. He's
| spoiled for everything else under heaven.
| He's got to have the sky and chance to
breathe. It's about all there is to get,
better than he can have anywhere else;
but it's a sure fact that so much he's got
| to have whatever else gets left. It's like
q poem, may be-'T amt much on rhyme"
myself-driving across them in warm
weather; horses fresh and well fed,
with q big tent and spring cots for
| camping and supply wagon with every
| thing you can think of but ice, and may be
that; all the world a-ripple with summer
green: like the south wind surging like q
warm ocean and the sky blue and soft and
arching away up to the great white throne.
That's one thing. To go trailing along,
horses dead beat and half starved, pulling
| q big wagon through sloughs up to the
axles or over frozen ruts that wiring every
bolt in the concern and every bone in your
body, while mile after mile of dead grass
stretching out to the edge Of the world,
with buzzards swinging up out of nowhere,
more like something internal than any de-
cent living thing; with coyotes yelping and
CRYING all night-that's another thing, and
the kind that doesn't get talked about
much. Perhaps you don't remember that
item in last winters newspapers-a half
dozen lines or so-twO families frozen in a
Texas norther, horses, dogs and all, just
as they stood.
That night we went into camp ten miles
from home. There was q ravlne and
| plenty Of brush, and the horses were
ready to drop in their tracks, and that
last ten miles was one Of the things that
couldn't be done. So we got our fires
made and our horses fed and sheltered as
well as we could, and put some heart into
ourselves with buffalo steak and hot cof-
fee and the rest of them packed them
selves into the wagon. Some one had to
stand guard and keep the fires going, and
took the contract.
1t wasn't a dark night. There was .
goOdish bit of q moon behind the clouds,
and 1t made gray kind of light over every
thing. We were at the bottom OF dry
canyon that ran east and west, and the
wind did not reach us. 1t screeched and
screamed over our heads, and through it
all there was kind Of moaning roar, as
if we were at the bottom of a tide as deep
tS tut SltiS NiSu. SOe W SAAIhAA6
ABOUT old times away back, of one Sun
day night just before We were married. l
had gone east little sooner than we ex-
pected, and had to wait for her things to
be finished. We went to church that
night. A keen, crisp, still night it was,
when the sleigh runners squeaked on the
snow.and the moonlight traced the shad-
ows of the elm on the white ground as il
they had been put in black drawing. The
church was warm and bright and they
hadn't taken down the Christmas greens
vet so the air was full Of the smell of them
that spicy, haunting smell, that seems as
if it came somehow from q world before
this
1t was years since had smelled it, and
sat and listened to the music and looked
at the people, with their comfortable
clothing and faces that were cheerful, not
worn and wrinkled with care and weather.
Molly was an awfully pretty girl in those
days; all pink and white like an apple
blossom, somehow. And fighting to keep
awake out there in the heart of Kansas
prairie, got to thinking about her as she
was then and how she had changed. Skin
the color of tanned leather now, and that
wild, hungry look in her blue eyes, as if
they were always staring into the dark for
something that frightened her. And both
her children dead, and not even u spray
of the pine she loved so, nor a breath Of
music; nothing but a dirt floor and log
walls that did all that was expected of
them if they kept the weather ont.
Somebody hailed over the top of the
bluff
''What camps that?'
kenyon and mates'
II lowed it was''-scrambling down
the sides of the gulch on his sure footed
mule-''you, Kenyon? News for you. A
kid up to your ranch, ten days ola All
hands doing we'll yesterday morning"
The rest reused themselves, sleepily.
He had got off the trail, and seeing our
smoke had struck for it. We knew and
he knew that the chances were that it
saved his life; but he swallowed Ills cof-
fee and smoked his pipe and turned in
with the rest as If getting lost in a
norther was one Of the things that hap
pened, of course, to every man.
Then sat and thought a while, and
finally reused out Madison.
''You take my turn" said to him;
'I'm going home"
''Not brute that will travel
''I'n do my own traveling-on foot"
AOu A pass AA souA SACShS UCAOAS
morning."
mo, the wind is at my back; no fords;
I'll keep going;" and I went.
Went; half running, with the wind
driving me on till I was ready to drop.
Once fell and lay there with the wind
dragging and tearing at me till began to
grow sleepy, and then had to get up and
60 ahead again.
Perhaps You never tried crossing a
prairie at night without trail to follow.
It's curious thing, one cannot account
for; one that makes you feel rs if your
body and all your senses were of no more
account than a spent cartridge. 1t hap
pened to me that night, space and time
seemed to get all mixed up together oil at
once racing along; it seemed to me that
had been keeping up that sort of thing for
hours. 1 felt so adrift somehow-so hor-
ribly lost-as il had slipped out of my
self and was out in space without land
mark to measure anything by. 1 expect
you'll have to try it yourself to know
what mean. had no watch; there was
no way Of knowing how much time had
gone. OF all the devils that can enter
into q man uncertainty is the worst.
Every sort Of fancy came into my head.
Perhaps did not know the route as well
as had thought. Perhaps I had even
passed the cabins and was going away
from them with every step. ought to
have reached them in three hours at the
utmost. 1t seemed to me that I had been
hurting along for twice three hours.
Once tried madly to fight back into the
wind. 1t was hopeless, worse than use
iess. 1 should drop with exhaustion in o
few minutes, and must keep going
And then 1 found burned grass under
my feet. There had been a fire over the
prairie. The ground was not cold yet. A
new dread got hold of me. Who knew
where it had gone or what had stood in its
track 1 ran along screaming something
praying or rswearing-quite mad, think,
for little, till fell again, and the jar
brought me to my senses.
1 had gone over the edge of an old buff
falo run scooped deep by the rush of sum-
mer rains. lay still for little while I
must have gone to sleep, or perhaps
tainted away. Anyway, when I came to
myself again the world was as still as the